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Published on: 25/07/2022

Still image from the video, ‘Five hard to reach communities celebrate the flow of water for the first time’Ghana at a glance 2021

"The nearest water to us is a stream and that is what we used for everything. The water from the stream turned every food we cooked, like cassava and palm nut soup, dark. But we used it anyway because we didn't have any safe and clean water close to us."
- Emelia Agyewaa, Farmer, Kokofu Awonsu community.

For the first time, in 2021, more than 2,500 people from five hard-to-reach communities and five deprived schools in Asutifi North district, Ghana, were able to celebrate having water, sanitation and hygiene services.

The work began in 2018, when a partnership of local government, NGOs, service providers, traditional authorities and communities launched the Asutifi North Ahonidie Mpontuo (ANAM) initiative, supported by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. We've made steady progress since towards achieving our goal of reaching every person in the district with safe WASH services by 2030.

But in 2020, 21 of the 49 communities in the district – considered hard to reach with scattered settlements – still had no water services. And 27 of the 73 public schools in the district did not have basic drinking water services on school premises.

In 2021, the Latter-day Saints Charities –convinced by the partnership's success so far – embraced the challenge and invested in expanding water and sanitation services to the 2,500 people mentioned above.

Emelia is still collecting water, but now she does so from an improved source located at the centre of the community and in front of her house.
However, there are still 16 communities in remote areas of the district with no water services. These are small, scattered settlements that do not meet the population threshold for water service provision by government and have difficult groundwater potential. Reaching them requires new partnerships, funding, and an innovative mix of technologies.

While challenges remain, especially with regards to increasing access to safely managed services and achieving safe sanitation for all, the ANAM partnership continues its collective action towards ensuring that all people in the district can enjoy their human right to safe water and sanitation.

Progress toward the 2030 vision of Asutifi North district*

Progress toward the 2030 vision of Asutifi North district*


Footnotes

1   Number of partners, collaborations, or working groups with whom we worked closely on programme implementation in 2021.

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